and his
family had been confined.
The Duke of Bourbon, in his youth, had had a famous duel with the
Count of Artois, the future Charles X. No resentment subsisted
between the two princes, who afterwards maintained the most
cordial relations. During the Emigration, the Duke of Bourbon
served with valor in the army of his father, the Prince of Conde.
While the white flag floated at the head of a regiment he was
found fighting for the royal cause; then, the struggle ended, he
retired to England, where he had lived near Louis XVIII., and
always at his disposition. Returning to France at the Restoration,
he had since resided almost always at Chantilly or at Saint-Leu,
without his wife, from whom he had long been separated. He was
ranked as a reactionary, but busied himself little with politics,
and exerted no influence.
The Count of Puymaigre, who, in his office as Prefect of the Oise,
at the commencement of the reign of Charles X., often went to
Chantilly, speaks of him in his Souvenirs:--
"The name of my father, much beloved by the late Prince of Conde,
more than my title of Prefect, caused me to be received with
welcome, and I took advantage of it the more gladly, because I
have never seen a house where one was more at one's ease, and
where there was more of that comfortable life known before the
Revolution as the chateau life. There was little of the prince in
him; he was more like an elderly bachelor who liked to have about
him joy, movement, pleasure, a wholly Epicurean life.
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